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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: that shines a light on the winds and losses of

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Speaker 1: everyday history. I'm Gabe Lucier, and today we're looking at

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Speaker 1: the cautionary tale of a man who threw an epic

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Speaker 1: party in seventeenth century France and wound up paying for

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Speaker 1: it for the rest of his life. The day was

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Speaker 1: August seventeenth, sixteen fifty three. French finance minister Nicola Fouquet

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Speaker 1: hosted an ill advised party at his new palatial estate.

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Speaker 1: The event was supposedly meant to honor its most famous guest,

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Speaker 1: the young King Louis the fourteenth, but it was really

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Speaker 1: just a way for Fouquet to show off his fancy

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Speaker 1: new digs, a sprawling estate about an hour southeast of

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Speaker 1: Paris known as Vous Le Vicomte. Fouquet was also hoping

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Speaker 1: to score some FaceTime with the King and maybe get

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Speaker 1: himself promoted a prime minister. Unfortunately, his pr campaign didn't

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Speaker 1: go as planned. Despite an elaborate fireworks show and the

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Speaker 1: premiere of a brand new play by Moliere, the party

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Speaker 1: didn't boost Fouquet's standing with the king. In fact, just

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Speaker 1: the opposite. Louis felt threatened by Fouquet's flagrant display of

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Speaker 1: wealth and had him arrested on trumped up charges just

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Speaker 1: three weeks later. Born to wealthy parents in sixteen fifteen,

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Speaker 1: Nicola Fouquet quickly ascended the ranks of the French court

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Speaker 1: due to his intelligence and his loyalty to the royal family.

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Speaker 1: His rapid rise was in keeping with his family's emblem

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Speaker 1: a squirrel and its motto quo non ascend it, which

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Speaker 1: means what heights will he not scale. In sixteen fifty three,

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Speaker 1: when he was thirty eight years old, Fouquet landed his

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Speaker 1: cushiest appointment yet when he was named Superintendent of Finances

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Speaker 1: by Cardinal Mazarin, the chief minister to King Louis the fourteenth.

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Speaker 1: By that time, Fouquet had expanded his already prodigious wealth

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Speaker 1: by making a series of sound investments and by marrying

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Speaker 1: into an equally well off family. He had also put

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Speaker 1: all that money to good use by starting construction on

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Speaker 1: an extravagant chateau and grounds in the French countryside. It's

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Speaker 1: not exactly clear how Fouquet obtained the land on which

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Speaker 1: he built Voule Vicomte. Some historians think he inherited it

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Speaker 1: in sixteen forty when his father died. Others think he

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Speaker 1: purchased it outright, perhaps using his high standing at court

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Speaker 1: to help secure the sale. In any event, once Fouquet

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Speaker 1: had the land in his possession, he began the lengthy

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Speaker 1: process of transforming it into the opulent estate of his dreams.

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Speaker 1: He diverted a river to create canals and lakes, and

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Speaker 1: is said to have leveled three villages to create its

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Speaker 1: stunning ornamental gardens. The house itself, really more like a

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Speaker 1: personal palace, was just as dazzling as the manicured grounds

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Speaker 1: it sat upon. From its stone facade and stately dome

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Speaker 1: to its gilded woodwork and luxurious imported furnishings, vous Le

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Speaker 1: Vicomte outshined every other estate in France, including the King's Palace,

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Speaker 1: as Versailles had not yet been built. To achieve this

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Speaker 1: architectural marvel, Fouquet enlisted the help of the top designers

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Speaker 1: of his era. He hired France's greatest architect, Louis LeVaux,

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Speaker 1: its greatest interior designer, Charles le Brune, and its greatest gardener,

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Speaker 1: Andre Lenore. It took this dream team a full twenty

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Speaker 1: years to complete the project, and when they finally finished

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Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty one, Fouquet decided to celebrate by throwing

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Speaker 1: himself and over the top housewarming party. In hindsight, he

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Speaker 1: probably should have known that his show of wealth would

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Speaker 1: ruffle a few feathers. After all, the country had just

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Speaker 1: experienced a series of civil uprisings known as the Fronde,

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Speaker 1: and the restructured royal court was rife with political intrigue

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Speaker 1: and backstabbing. Fouquet's friends warned him to keep an eye

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Speaker 1: out for one enemy in particular, Jean Baptiste Colbert. He

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Speaker 1: was the personal secretary to Cardinal Mazarin and had ambitions

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Speaker 1: to succeed Fouquet as finance minister. With that goal in mind,

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Speaker 1: Colbert revealed a series of irregularities in Fouquet's accounts and

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Speaker 1: accused him of embezzling government funds, even though in reality

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Speaker 1: it was Mazarin who had led the shady dealings. Colbert

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Speaker 1: took his findings to Louis the fourteenth in hopes of

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Speaker 1: tarnishing Fouquet's reputation, but the king chose not to act

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Speaker 1: until more evidence had been gathered. Once again. Fouquet's friends

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Speaker 1: at court tried to warn him that a plot was brewing,

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Speaker 1: but he waved away their suspicions and proceeded with his

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Speaker 1: party as planned. On the afternoon of August seventeenth, sixteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one, twenty two year old King Louis was the

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Speaker 1: first guest to arrive at the newly completed Vous les Vicomte.

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Speaker 1: Fouquet wanted to give him a private tour of the estate,

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Speaker 1: including the special bedroom he had built there just for him,

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Speaker 1: a home away from home for the King. Later that evening,

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Speaker 1: the other guests arrived, somewhere between three thousand and six

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Speaker 1: thousand in total. Each partygoer received a costly gift, a

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Speaker 1: diamond brooch for the ladies and a thoroughbred horse for

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Speaker 1: the men. For the evening's entertainment, Fouquet had called in

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Speaker 1: a favor from the famous playwright Moliere. The author penned

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Speaker 1: a new comedy specifically for the occasion, and after dinner,

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Speaker 1: the premier performance was held in Fouquet's vast gardens. When

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Speaker 1: the play concluded, guests were treated to a spectacular fireworks

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Speaker 1: show above the estate. There was even a large mechanical

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Speaker 1: whale that swam through a canal and shot off more fireworks.

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Speaker 1: The party was a resounding success by every measure except one.

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Speaker 1: King Louis didn't feel honored by the event. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the whole celebration seemed to him like a provocative statement

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Speaker 1: of Fouquet's own wealth and power, one designed to make

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Speaker 1: the king look small by comparison. So as the evening's

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Speaker 1: many spectacles unfolded all around him, Louis thought back to

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Speaker 1: Colbert's accusations. He was already inclined to believe that Fouquet

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Speaker 1: had stolen money from the royal treasury, and the excessive

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Speaker 1: wealth on display that night seemed to confirm his suspicion.

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Speaker 1: Many have since speculated that the King made his decision

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Speaker 1: to imprison Fouquet right then and there at the party.

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Speaker 1: Some even say that Louis wanted to arrest him that

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Speaker 1: very night, but was ultimately talked down by his mother.

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Speaker 1: Either way, Fouquet's fate was sealed by the end of

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Speaker 1: the party. Where As the author Voltaire later put it, quote,

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Speaker 1: on August seventeenth, at six in the evening, Fouquet was

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Speaker 1: King of France. At two in the morning, he was nobody.

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Speaker 1: Three weeks after the party, Fouquet was arrested by d'Artagnan,

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Speaker 1: the captain of the King's musketeers. He was put on

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Speaker 1: trial for embezzlement and treason, and after three grueling years

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Speaker 1: in court, the former finance minister was found guilty on

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Speaker 1: all counts. The judges voted to banish Fouquet from France,

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Speaker 1: but in an unprecedented move, Louis the fourteenth overruled their verdict.

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Speaker 1: But he didn't soften the punishment as you might expect. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he worsened it by sentencing Fouquet to life imprisonment. It

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Speaker 1: was the only time in French history that a monarch

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Speaker 1: used their pardoning power to increase the severity of a punishment.

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Speaker 1: It had been several years since that fateful night at

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Speaker 1: Vous le Vicant, but the pain at a delta the

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Speaker 1: King's ego had apparently lingered Nicola. Fouquet never again saw

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Speaker 1: the estate he loved so dearly. He spent the rest

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Speaker 1: of his life in prison and died in his cell

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Speaker 1: on March twenty third, sixteen eighty. But even if Fouquet

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Speaker 1: had been allowed to return to his former home, he

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Speaker 1: would have found it much emptier than he remembered it.

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Speaker 1: That's because King Louis stripped the house of most of

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Speaker 1: its furniture, tapestries, and statues shortly after Fouquet's arrest. He

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Speaker 1: even dug up some of the trees in the garden

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Speaker 1: and then replanted them at his own estates. Surprisingly, the

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Speaker 1: king left the house itself intact, and it still stands today.

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Speaker 1: Voulo Viscomte has changed hands several times over the past

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Speaker 1: few centuries, and though it remains under private ownership today,

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Speaker 1: it still opened to the public for tours. As for

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Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth, he may not have claimed the chateau

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Speaker 1: as his own, but he definitely copied its Italian Baroque style.

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Speaker 1: After Fouquet's conviction, Louis hired the same three designers who

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Speaker 1: created the VU and put them to work on his

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Speaker 1: own long term project, remodeling his father's modest hunting lodge

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Speaker 1: into a grand palace at Versailles. The resulting landmark is

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Speaker 1: certainly a work of art and its own right. But

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Speaker 1: if you ask me, Fouquet did it better, I'm Gabe Lucier,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. If you enjoyed today's episode,

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Speaker 1: consider keeping up with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Speaker 1: You can find us at TDI HC Show. You can

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Speaker 1: also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: you can get in touch directly by writing to This

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Speaker 1: Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for

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Speaker 1: producing the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll

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Speaker 1: see you back here again tomorrow for another Day in

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Speaker 1: History class aspect the punt, the Future,